Charities say 100,000 more children in Scotland will be pushed into poverty by the end of the decade (Image: Getty Images)

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THE Con-Dem Government were branded “dishonest” last night after claiming brutal benefit cuts are going to help children out of poverty.

UK ministers sparked outrage by sending a report to the United Nations insisting their controversial welfare changes will help the country’s poorest kids.

They made the claim despite concern from charities and other experts that slashing benefits has hammered the poor and led to a surge in the use of food banks.

The Scottish Government – who tried to have the claims removed from the report – reacted with fury.

Children’s Minister Aileen Campbell said: “This report is downright insulting to the thousands of children driven into poverty by the Tories.

“The Scottish Government are straining every sinew to help families hit by welfare cuts but tens of thousands more children are facing poverty in coming years because of the Tories. That is the reality.

“In a country as rich as Scotland, food banks have never been busier. That is a national scandal.

“Instead of telling the truth, the Tories are censoring Scotland’s view and refusing to tell the UN the reality of their cuts. That is simply dishonest.”

The Con-Dem claims were made in a progress report to the UN about implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Campbell had been consulted in advance and demanded the Scottish Government’s objections to welfare cuts were included.

But her views were ignored in the final version of the report, now published on the UN’s website.

It says: “The strategy outlines action to raise the incomes of poor children’s families by helping them get into work and by making work pay.

“These include cutting tax for millions of people through increases to the personal tax allowance, reforming the welfare system through Universal Credit, which will lift up to 300,000 children out of poverty and increasing the National Minimum Wage to £6.50 per hour.”

The UK Government claims were ridiculed by charity bosses. John Downie of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said: “It’s outrageous the UK Government are claiming that welfare cuts will lift children out of poverty when all the research shows the exact opposite to be true.

“In fact, an additional 100,000 children in Scotland will be pushed into poverty by the end of the decade owing to welfare changes. The benefit and tax credit support that thousands of families in Scotland – in and out of work – rely on to get by is being ripped away. We’re being left with a humanitarian crisis.”

Save the Children warned last month that the number of youngsters trapped in poverty in the UK is set to soar to a record five million by the end of the decade.

A spokesman for the UK Government said: “We sent the report to the Scottish Government for their comments. They suggested four changes, we accepted three.

“They asked us to remove the section on Universal Credit. We kept this section in as it is being introduced in Scotland and will help reduce child poverty.”

The row erupted as the Scottish Parliament’s welfare reform committee told the UK Government to stop “ignoring” the evidence showing a link between welfare reform and the growing use of food banks.

Department for Work and Pensions official Neil Couling had claimed poor people use food banks to maximise their economic potential and told the committee last month that many facing benefit sanctions welcome the jolt it can give them.

Committee convener Michael McMahon, a Labour MSP, said: “The UK Government can no longer ignore evidence that their welfare reforms are having a real impact on people’s ability to feed themselves.

“Our evidence showed some low-paid workers need to access food banks. This makes it even more insulting for them to insist that people using food banks are anything other than in desperate need of help.”